


old ghost(s).

by tenderthings



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Character Study, Dalish Lore, Fictober 2017, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mild Gore, Near Death Experiences, Non-Graphic Violence, mentions of tamlen/mahariel & zevran/mahariel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 17:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12486488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderthings/pseuds/tenderthings
Summary: She took her bow and went to war, speckles of black blood across her mouth. She fought for no one, but her god.(for the prompts: “What are you afraid of?” + They knew that hope required disbelief.)





	old ghost(s).

 

 

1.

 

The story of the woman who saved Ferelden is a story history tends to get wrong. Soon after the Blight, she disappeared from the public eye, only adding to the ambiguity of her own existence. The populace reveled in it—an almost unknown Dalish hero as their champion, nearly as blasphemous as Shartan himself. Their awe gave way into mystery and mystery into imagination, before at last: re-write.

__A king-maker__ , some said. __A redeemed heroine,__  the Chantry claimed. Variations upon variations persisted, growing and twisting from mouth to mouth, and ear to ear, until even the truest of accounts became debatable.

Bards turned her into a pretty song, a sweet lie that spoke of her glory and none of her grief. Artisans cultivated little more than a war monument for Denerim Castle, bearing her likeness to some degree. Historians managed only a name and a vague retelling of her actions as a Grey Warden.

When it came to the truth, all were only ever keen on the ending—sometimes the middle. No one, but the People remembered the beginning.

 

2.

 

__Andruil is the hunter, but Falon’Din is the kill, the bounty__ —an old proverb, lost in translation, but made to be true the day she became a woman.

She killed a beast, great and proud, and presented its meat to her clan on her knees, her hands stained red as she bowed her head.

It was a harsh winter that year—they were all afraid, but with her gift, they no longer had any reason to be. With death as her patron god, neither did she.

The last daughter of Mahariel took Falon’Din’s mark and served him well, a stalwart guardian to her clan until the day she no longer could be.

 

3.

 

When the taint first touched her, she did not weep or plea.

She looked into her old friend’s eyes and resigned herself to an unlucky demise. If she was doomed to repeat her mother’s path, her lover gone and her time come too soon, then so be it. She would step into Falon’Din’s light without a fight. Her clan would persevere.

Then, the human came and gave her a means to live. It was less an offer and more a command, old accords struck up once more. Hurt as she was, she swore to grant her clan’s needs, whatever they may be. So, she took his hand and made her pledge. Bitterly, she did, but quietly, with no tears or spoken regrets.

Sparing only a single glance behind, she walked silently into the world of Men and Maker with a sickness spreading within and her god etched into her skin.

 

4.

 

Ostagar was a hell-ground but only the beginning. She had killed darkspawn before, but the few did not compare to the horde.

She felt their call long before she drank their blood. Like the wolves that stalked Maren’s halla, she knew they were lingering behind the horizon, amongst the trees, waiting for the dark to come and the guards to sleep.

She did not hesitate to drink from the goblet. She saw their god and in turn, she spoke the words of her own, spitting and gnarling in her sleep as the vision passed. Then, they were truly inside, nestling deep ‘til the sickness could not be undone.

When they pulled, she pulled back and eventually the thread snapped. She awoke, alive once more.

 

5.

 

She took her bow and went to war, speckles of black blood across her mouth. She fought for no one, but her god. When the horde arrived and the shemlen betrayed their own, she was ready to die. Her mission was fulfilled, and though it enraged her to meet her end like this, in the name of a clan not her own, she would not stray from the journey only Falon’Din could guide her on. It is what she wanted the most.

When the she-dragon appeared from the growing smoke, so like the mother Mythal, she did not question her lord’s decision to again let her linger on in this world of man. There was no point.

 

6.

 

Once the witch passed on her daughter and bid them off, with words that echoed more like a curse than as a blessing, she did not look back. She stopped looking back.

Days turned into weeks, into months. Her clan moved on, her lover was put to rest, she buried her dead, and she stopped looking back. Eventually, there was nothing left to look back at. Her god grew quiet.

 

7.

 

The shelmen bards anointed her as a courageous and noble woman, doing what needed to be done for love of country and man. In truth, she simply knew that __their__ hope required disbelief.

It didn’t take long to understand the shemlen and their ways. They wanted a savior, an icon set upon on a fruitless task, likely to be martyred, but if she won—if the Blight ended, who cared who committed the act? It was seemingly impossible, but the rumors of her deeds and the reveal of the bastard king brought shock, then joy, then the brightest glimmer of “ _ _perhaps”__. For them, the humans, it was enough.

She, in turn, was merely devout. She would not flinch from Falon’Din’s embrace. She would see her duty done, as her god demanded even if his warmth turned cool.

 

8.

 

The Blight ended and she moved on. She fell in love—a true story that the bards adored, but her crow-love remained unsung—and found her next stead in the name of order, rather than clan. She fought, she killed. She built her castle and passed it on. When it was time, she left quietly as she did the forest.

 

9.

 

The creatures below bellowed for her, louder and louder with each passing moon. She listened, she hoped, she took her lover with her on the path unpaved. Her god became deaf and unknown, replaced by a softer touch. She still bore his mark, still carried his might, but her payers changed. They could be heard by no one.

She carried on as the taint spread and her skin paled, until the night came where she awoke from a vision not unlike the first. What she found was no Old God, but an older god stood still by the fireplace. She was bright and beautiful, a dragon wrapped in silk. When the mother asked her who she feared, she said none.

When the witch asked her __what__ she feared, she said only undeath. With a smile, she replied, “I can help with that.”

 

 


End file.
